"I haven't seen any evidence that the attempts to interfere in our election infrastructure was to favor a particular party", she said at the Aspen Security Forum in Colorado. "I think the overall goal is to sow discord and get us all to fight against each other rather than understand who the enemy is".

Homeland Security chief on Thursday questioned whether Russian Federation interfered in the U.S. presidential election to help President Donald Trump win, contradicting the assessment of the United States intelligence community.

In January 2017, US intelligence agencies issued a joint conclusion that Russian Federation conducted a state hacking-and-propaganda campaign aimed at influencing the 2016 presidential election in favor of Trump.

While DHS "right now" has not seen "the targeting of the state and local systems that we saw in 2016", Russian Federation is still engaged in trying to influence Americans and sow discord through social media and other means, Assistant Secretary Jeanette Manfra said Thursday. "I agree completely, I've said that many times, with the intel assessment", Nielsen said.

She left the door open on the question of whether Russian Federation favored candidate Trump.

Nielsen said that interference was both with the election infrastructure and through the use of foreign influence.

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At first, Nielsen distinguished between efforts targeted at election infrastructure in the USA and other attempts to meddle.

Nielsen said the practice was aimed at deterring child trafficking, and that Congress needed to change immigration laws so that children and parents could be detained together. "I have tremendous faith in Dan Coats, and if he says that [Russia is a threat], I would accept that", Trump told CBS.

She said the department was working to make a court-ordered deadline to reunify children older than 5 by July 26 but it wouldn't cut corners do to it.

Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen "has repeatedly spread misinformation and lied to the American people", he said.

ThinkProgress" Aaron Rupar reports that afterwards, in a follow up with MSNBC's Andrea Mitchell, "Alexander said, "there wasn't a condemnation of white nationalism and white supremacy that I think a lot of people would want to hear from the secretary of Homeland Security on this issue'".